Here’s why K–12 teachers are quitting — from mckinsey.com

Excerpt:

School’s out for summer, but will educators return to the classroom in the fall? Nearly a third of US K–12 educators—or roughly 900,000 teachers—said in a recent McKinsey survey they are thinking of leaving their jobs before the next school year. “The longer [talent shortages] go unaddressed, the more potential damage they could cause to students and the future of the nation,” write partner Jake Bryant and coauthors. “By tailoring solutions that address the root causes of attrition, leaders could potentially build more fulfilling and equitable environments that better serve not only educators but also students and society at large.” Check out these insights for more on the factors that motivate educators to stay or leave, and dive into other vital issues impacting American public education.

Teachers Leaving the Classroom: An EdSurge Summer Reading List — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpt:

In fact, our top pieces all address the reality that plenty of educators are thinking of leaving the classroom behind. A National Education Association survey from 2022 found that more than half of educators were thinking of departing the profession earlier than planned.

As EdSurge senior reporter Emily Tate Sullivan wrote earlier this year, “Most educators have not left, and many never will. But some are following through; they’re walking out of their classrooms and away from the careers they thought they’d have for life.”

What Should You Learn for an Instructional Design Career? — from theelearningcoach.com by Connie Malamed

Excerpt:

Instructional design is a multidisciplinary field. This explains why it is often overwhelming when you want to transition into the career. There are so many shiny objects to attract your attention along the way. Do you love visual design? We’ve got it. Are you fascinated by the latest technologies? We’ve got that too. Perhaps you’re interested in data and analytics? We’ve got a place for you.

No wonder one of the most common questions I’m asked during coaching calls is, “Where do I start?” If you need help, here is the path I recommend regarding what to learn for a career in instructional design. To reduce stress and confusion, learn and build skills in one area at a time.

How to Transition From Teacher to Instructional Designer [2023 Guide] — from devlinpeck.com by Devlin Peck

Opinion: We must remove barriers that keep teachers away from our profession and encourage a diverse workforce — from hechingerreport.org by Sharif El-Mekki
Keeping teachers of color in classrooms requires a hard look at the state and district policies that work against them

Schools can’t afford to lose teachers of color. And with public schools struggling to fill teacher vacancies with qualified educators, district and school leaders can’t afford to lose any more teachers,period.

Teachers and Families Are More Divided Than Ever — and Students Are Losing Out — from edsurge.com by Alicia Simba

What I’ve found is that inviting families in as collaborators has not only strengthened my students’ performance in school, but it has strengthened the bonds I have with their families, which is important, especially when those relationships are put under pressure in times of conflict. And conflict does inevitably come.

The problems facing schools are complex ones without easy answers, so we will disagree. But parents and families need to work with each other, not against each other, in order to jointly create the best schools for all of our kids.

Survey: Nearly half of parents looking to switch their kids’ schools — from reimaginedonline.org

Excerpt:

Nearly half of all parents are seeking new schools for their children in the 2023-24 school year. The data comes from a new survey by National School Choice Week, which found that 45.9 percent of parents want to enroll their child in a different learning environment this fall.

Of those parents, about 17 percent are still considering their options; 13 percent enrolled their student in a new school; 8.4 percent applied, and 7.5 percent chose homeschooling. That leaves 54 percent of parents keeping their child in their current school.

 

Who Does the Thinking: The Role of Generative AI in Higher Education — from youtube.com by Trine Jensen, Chris Dede, Frank Tsiwah, and Kate Thompson

Description:

Generative AI has taken the world by storm since OpenAI launched ChatGPT-3 in November 2022. Generative AI is characterized by its capacity to generate human-like content based on deep learning models in response to prompts. There is a wealth of opinions about how this will impact higher education spanning from the need to limit the use in the protection of higher education to embracing the tool as a means to improve higher education. In this webinar session, speakers from different regions shared their views and perspectives and discuss how Generative AI will transform higher education. What are the challenges to be addressed and which opportunities can be pursued to improve the quality of higher education? Watch the webinar and learn about the uncertainties, tensions, and opportunities triggered by Generative AI.

 


Trust and Transparency Are Key Factors When Using AI in Academia — from by Dr. Andrew Lang
Much can be learned from embracing artificial intelligence in the teaching and learning process. Here, two professors share their experiences using ChatGPT freely in the classroom.


A Professor Encouraged Students to Use ChatGPT. OpenAI Asked Her What She Learned — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Dr. Francine Berman permitted her students at UMass to use ChatGPT to help them write. Despite limitations, she found there were ways it could help edit student work.


Artificial intelligence glossary: 60+ terms to know — from techtarget.com by Ben Lutkevich
AI is moving fast and can be hard to keep up in real time. Use this glossary as a reference for AI terms. 


 

The AI-Education Divide — from drphilippahardman.substack.com by Philippa Hardman
How the rise of AI has reinforced inequity in education (and what we need to do to reverse it)
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Supreme Court makes its historic ruling in affirmative action cases — from hechingerreport.org by Olivia Sanchez
Court rules that these policies violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment

Ever since the Supreme Court announced last year that it would rule on two cases involving affirmative action in college admissions, the world of higher education has been anxiously awaiting a decision. Most experts predicted the court would eventually forbid the use of race as a factor in admissions decisions, and colleges and advocates have been scrambling to prepare for that new world.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court met those expectations, ruling that the consideration of race in college admissions is unconstitutional.

Supreme Court rules against race-conscious admissions at Harvard and UNC-Chapel Hill — from highereddive.com by Jeremy Bauer-Wolf
The opinion issued Thursday was unsurprising for college access advocates who had nonetheless urged the high court to keep with decades of precedent.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that race-conscious admissions practices at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill are unconstitutional, shattering decades of legal precedent and upending the recruitment and enrollment landscape for years to come.

Supreme Court rejects race-based affirmative action in college admissions — from washingtonpost.com by Robert Barnes

The Supreme Court on Thursday held that race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection, a historic ruling that rolls back decades of precedent and will force a dramatic change in how the nation’s private and public universities select their students.

U.S. Supreme Court Strikes Down Race-Conscious Admissions Nationwide — from chronicle.com by Andy Thomason and Sarah Brown

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday struck down colleges’ use of race-conscious admissions nationwide, ruling in a pair of closely watched cases that the practice is racially discriminatory.

Writing for the court’s majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said that policies that claim to consider an applicant’s race as one factor among many are in fact violating the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

 

Coursera’s Global Skills Report for 2023 — from coursera.org
Benchmark talent and transform your workforce with skill development and career readiness insights drawn from 124M+ learners.

Excerpt:

Uncover global skill trends
See how millions of registered learners in 100 countries are strengthening critical business, technology, and data science skills.

 

Peanuts Sing Roundabout — from theawesomer.com; I hadn’t seen this yet…so for those of my generation, you might like this as well! 🙂

 

How Schools Can Use Cultural Performing Arts to Reimagine Community-Engaged Learning — from edsurge.com by Christopher Sandoval

Excerpt:

My experience has taught me that if students do not believe their school is invested in activities and programs that reflect their community and culture, they will not feel a sense of belonging in the classroom, which will negatively impact student engagement and their ability to understand and appreciate cultural differences among one another.

Unfortunately, not every school believes the performing arts are worth the investment; if anything, the trend of school funding in the performing arts has been in sharp decline for some time. While student engagement continues to be a significant issue for classrooms across the country, I believe the performing arts can be an opportunity for schools to reimagine community engagement in schools and get students back on track.

 

Pilot projects using AI in legal world produce mixed results, but still promising: legal tech panel — from canadianlawyermag.com by Zena Olijnyk
Canadian Legal Tech Summit attendees hear of challenges, benefits of AI as ‘hype’ continues to grow

Excerpt:

A pilot project designed to test the potential of artificial intelligence tools at McCarthy Tétrault LLP showed that certain types of applications for the legal profession seemed to work better than others, panellists told attendees to the recent Canadian Lawyer Legal Tech Summit.

“I would say that the results were mixed,” David Cohen, senior director of client service delivery for the firm. During the panel, moderated by University of Calgary assistant professor Gideon Christian, Cohen spoke about a pilot of about 40 lawyers from different practices at the firm who used an AI platform with only public data.

The group [testing the platform] said it needs to get better before we start using this for research,” he said. However, he said, when it came to tasks like generating documents, reviewing 100-page cases “and summarizing and analyzing them,” the AI platforms did much better.


What are the top legal technology trends in 2023? — from legalitprofessionals.com

Excerpt:

To help with this, our Client Success Team have summarised the eight key legal technology trends in the market, as well as the themes discussed at recent legal technology events and conferences including the British Legal Technology Forum and iManage ConnectLive Virtual 2023, both of which we were proud to sponsor.


On a somewhat related note, also see:

Designing the Law Office of the Future — from workdesign.com by Deborah Nemeth
Deborah Nemeth of SmithGroup shares how inspiration from higher education and hospitality can help inform the next evolution of the law office.

 

101 creative ideas to use AI in education, A crowdsourced collection — from zenodo.org by Chrissi Nerantzi, Sandra Abegglen, Marianna Karatsiori, & Antonio Martínez-Arboleda (Eds.); with thanks to George Veletsianos for this resource

101 creative ideas to use AI in education, A crowdsourced collection

As an example, here’s one of the ideas from the crowdsourced collection:

Chat with anyone in the past

Chatting with Napoleon Bonaparte

 


On a somewhat related note, also see:

Merlyn Mind launches education-focused LLMs for classroom integration of generative AI — from venturebeat.com by Victor Dey

Excerpt:

Merlyn Mind, an AI-powered digital assistant platform, announced the launch of a suite of large language models (LLMs) specifically tailored for the education sector under an open-source license.

Designing courses in an age of AI — from teachinginhighered.com by Maria Andersen
Maria Andersen shares about designing courses in an age of artificial intelligence (AI) on episode 469 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.

With generative AI, we have an incredible acceleration of change happening.

Maria Andersen

 

Virtual Production Primer — from provideocoalition.com by Damian Allen

Excerpt:

…use this handy guide to educate yourself on the terms and technologies at play in Virtual Production.

An example of ICVFX using Unreal Engine and an LED volume


On somewhat related tangent, also see:


Below is an item regarding the upgrade to Midjourney, which is an example of generative AI that can convert natural language prompts into images.

 

Advancing Excellence in Education: The Changing Role of Centres for Teaching & Learning — from media-and-learning.eu by Alexandra Mihai, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Excerpts:

Their most recognisable role is to partner with faculty and provide them with inspiration, expertise and support in their teaching. But a broader role is emerging at institutional level- helping create a culture where people value talking about teaching and more generally, fostering a culture of continuous learning. In this respect, CTLs act as agents of change, aiming to influence the organizational (learning) environment.

CTLs are part of an ecosystem, internally and externally, and they have the potential to play a very important role, that of a network node. Internally, this can mean connecting various silos within the university, a much needed task, while externally it implies establishing collaboration flows with other CTLs that can in turn lead to broader inter-university collaboration. Making use of the full potential of this role can make a big difference for the success of a CTL.


Speaking of Teaching & Learning Centers, also see:

7 Questions on Engaging Faculty in Digital Accessibility — from campustechnology.com by Rhea Kelly
We asked the Technical College System of Georgia’s accessibility champions how they help instructors create a more inclusive learning experience for all students.

 

Pioneering Advanced Math from Behind Bars Math research gives meaning to years spent in prison — from scientificamerican.com by Amory Tillinghast-Raby

Excerpt:

Now a nonprofit co-founded by Havens has invented a computational programming platform built around one of the few technologies that people in prison do have access to: highly restricted, text-only e-mail. And as this facility begins to offer new opportunities, more and more incarcerated people are working on advanced mathematics to give meaning to their years behind bars.

 

The Rumors Were True: Thomson Reuters Acquires Casetext for $650M Cash — from lawnext.com by Bob Ambrogi

Thomson Reuters Acquires Casetext for $650M Cash

Excerpt:

“The proposed transaction will complement Thomson Reuters existing AI roadmap and builds on its recent initiatives, including a commitment to invest more than $100 million annually on AI capabilities, the development of new generative AI experiences across its product suite, as well as a new plugin with Microsoft and Microsoft 365 Copilot for legal professionals,” TR’s announcement said.

From DSC:
I post this to show how AI continues to make inroads into the legal realm — and how serious vendors are about it. I believe AI-enabled applications will eventually increase access to justice for the citizens of the United States of America.


Below is an addendum on 6/28/23 that further illustrates how serious vendors are about AI:

Databricks picks up MosaicML, an OpenAI competitor, for $1.3B — from techcrunch.com by Ingrid Lunden

Excerpt:

Databricks announced it will pay $1.3 billion to acquire MosaicML, an open source startup with neural networks expertise that has built a platform for organizations to train large language models and deploy generative AI tools based on them.

 

Private Student Loans Have Gotten 2x More Expensive Since 2021 — from forbes.com by Vinay Bhaskara; via GSV

Excerpts:

Higher ed may appear less impacted on the surface. But a small yet critical cohort of students and families has been heavily affected – students and parents who take out private student loans. Private student loans are a small piece of the overall student loan puzzle, representing roughly 8% of outstanding student debt (~$146.9 billion) according to a March 2023 analysis from Federal Student Aid.

Private student loans have gotten way more expensive
With that context in mind, it’s worth analyzing how the rise in interest rates has impacted borrowing costs for families. The numbers are staggering. As the Fed has hiked interest rates, private loan borrowing costs have more than doubled since November of 2021. The average interest rate on a 10-year private student loan has jumped from a low of 3.3% in November 2021 to 7% at the end of May 2023. Interest rates for 5-year private loans have skyrocketed even faster, jumping from a low of 2.4% all the way to 8.70% across the same period.
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Higher Ed 101: Accreditation Explained — a podcast from futureupodcast.com by Jeff Selingo and Michael Horn

Excerpt:

Tuesday, June 6, 2023 – Far too often, individuals in higher education don’t understand the nuances of how accreditors operate and the role they play in supporting—or constraining—institutions. Jeff and Michael welcome Barbara Brittingham, former president of the New England Commission on Higher Education, to give the history of accreditation, break down how accrediting agencies operate, show how they compare to one another, and delve into how they might evolve in the future with an eye toward how these organizations impact institutional transformation and support learners in achieving their education and career goals. This episode is made possible with support from Ascendium Education Group, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Course Hero.
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Building Apprenticeship Nation with Ryan Craig of Achieve Partners — a podcast from edtechinsiders.buzzsprout.com with Ryan Craig
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Rich Novak (Rutgers University) on Evaluating the Changes in Higher Ed — a podcast from Illumination by Modern Campus with Amrit Ahluwalia and Rich Novak. Thanks Amrit for all that you’ve done and are doing.

Excerpt:

On today’s episode of the Illumination by Modern Campus podcast, host Amrit Ahluwalia was joined by Rich Novak to evaluate the changes in higher education over the past decade, and the opportunities ahead for continuing education.
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Council Post: Learning In The Digital Age: Reskilling And The Evolution Of Education — from forbes.com by Daphne Kis

Excerpt:

Partnering With Higher Education
I believe that companies can gain a competitive edge in hiring and retention by establishing long-term partnerships with educators, universities and other pedagogically-driven institutions. However, it is crucial to design these partnerships with scale and replication in mind in order to avoid high costs and low adoption rates that can result in failure.

Establishing a successful partnership will also require companies and universities to determine and agree on the skill-based outcomes they aim to achieve. They will have to find effective ways to share data, develop timelines and measure success for both parties.

This is a shift from traditional partnerships, which often focus on research and innovation initiatives. With this, intellectual property was the outcome of the collaboration. Instead, in a reskilling partnership, in-demand skills are the outcome.
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EDUCAUSE and WCET QuickPoll Results: Current Trends in Microcredential Design and Delivery — from er.educause.edu by Jenay Robert
Microcredentialing programs remain nascent at many institutions, but interest continues to grow. As the demand for flexible learning experiences increases, stakeholders might find renewed interest in and uses for microcredentials.

 

I’m Hosting a Six-Episode Podcast on Reading Comprehension — from nataliewexler.substack.com by Natalie Wexler
Called “Reading Comprehension Revisited,” it’s the inaugural season of the Knowledge Matters Podcast.

Excerpt:

We needed to identify people to interview—classroom teachers, district leaders, maybe a reading researcher—and then I would need to interview them. I would also need to write the scripts, incorporating audio clips from the interviews. Then I would need to record the narration, which someone would have to integrate with the interview clips. Plus a lot of other stuff I wasn’t even aware of.

But I’m delighted to report that we’ve actually done it! The first episode is set to drop on June 28th, and you can listen to the trailer right now, here. You’ll also find links on that page to various podcast platforms where you can subscribe.

From DSC:
If you don’t mind providing me with feedback here on what you think of this new podcast (as new recordings become available), I’d appreciate it. 

 

2023 Workplace Learning Report: Building the agile future — from learning.linkedin.com
L&D puts people and skills at the center of organizational success

Excerpt:

This moment requires agility — and L&D can lead the way.

For individuals, agility fuels career growth and relevance. For organizations, agility equals the ability to survive and thrive even amid economic headwinds.

And what is agility if not constant learning? To build a resilient and adaptable future, learning leaders are working across HR to ensure everyone has the tools, the career paths, and the skills to succeed.

Read on for insights and ideas to power your own path.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian